Nobles' Club 235: Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Suryavarman II of Khmer, whom we last played in NC 185. The Khmer start with Hunting and Mining.

• Traits: Suryavarman II is Creative and Expansive. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums. Expansive adds +2 to all cities, gives a +100% bonus to Granaries and Harbors, and a +25% bonus to Workers. Note that the worker bonus doesn't apply to excess (directly ) converted to .
  
• The UB: The Baray, an Aqueduct that generates 1. You're not likely to need an Aqueduct early game thanks to the +2 from Expansive, but if that alone isn't enough to keep your cities alive after industrializing than the extra food and health from the Baray definitely will.
  
• The UU: The Ballista Elephant, a War Elephant with the unique quality to target mounted units first outside cities. It makes flanking an Ballista Elepult stack a risky prospect, since even if you have a stack defender that can keep up with the mounted units they'll not be able to defend them from the wrath of the elephants next turn. A well put together Eleput attack is generally enough of a bulldozer to not really care about minor details like that, though.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, Temperate Climate, Medium Sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

None.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 235 Suryavarman II Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

That looks like a nice plains hill tile that the scout is standing on, but there's a lot of spaces unexplored and only one move that the scout can make before we need to either move the settler or SIP, and I'm not sure what the best move for the scout is. 1SW onto the plains hill would tell us something about what we're moving into, 1SE -> 1SW onto the grass hill will tell us something about where we're moving away from (or 1SE -> 1W, but I judge the open grassland to be more important than the open plains/desert hill).

What do the experts think, what's the best move here?

 

[Anysense]

Since settling on PH improves worker timing only by one turn I'd like to see what I would miss in that case. Moving scout 1SW will show it as well as a couple of tiles gained by settling on PH.

 

[AcaMetis]

Thing is that the tile 2S1W of the Scout seems to be forested, and if so moving the scout SW won't reveal the tile 2S1W of the Settler, so we won't know what we're moving away from. It'll reveal some of what we're moving into, but I'm not sure if that's more important to check than what we're (potentially) moving away from.

 

[lymond]

Moving Scout 2S seems the only answer here, with goal to settle on PH unless something to nice is revealed

 

[Excal]

Immortal Difficulty
Normal Speed, No Tribal Villages, No Random Events

T56 1760BC

Spoiler :

ARABIA DEAD

settle on riverside plains hill after scout reveals dry rice 2S

met Capac, Saladin, Pacal, Genghis, Mansa, Qin = way too crowded

AnimHusb > Bronze = Copper + Forests = Axe Rush Saladin

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Excal

Spoiler :

Arabia expanded directly towards your face. Axe rush is, once again, the only realistic option available. Well done, but, I am glad sitting out of this game.

 

[dankok8]

I'm busy with a bunch of games but I'll try and play this one. I like Sury a lot! UU and UB are non-factors but Creative and Expansive are quiet traits that keep helping.

 

[Jellybug]

he is emperor and yoda hybrid

 

[Anysense]

Deity, normal speed. Turn 82.

Spoiler :

The map is a bit crowded and I'm boxed in again, although there is a bit more land available for peaceful expansion than last time. Got Math on t76, which would normally be good enough, but this time around it was very late - 3 civs already had it. Traded Math+HBR for Alpha+Masonry+Fishing and started on Construction. Expect to finish it by t92 - may be 91 - which is very, very late. I don't know if I can get away with it, at least I will have 6 cities with granaries - and four of them with barracks - ready to star whipping units. Decent amount of forest for chopping is a good thing too, so it doesn't look quite hopeless.

 

[Excal]

T144 680AD

Spoiler :

built Mids with stone > Rep
built GrLib + MoM with marble, Taj in 3 turns

failgold from Parth
GrMerch enroute to Inca TempOfArt (may burn for 12T GoldAge instead)

lib MilTrad
+ GunPow = Cuirs

a bit of warring but peace for now
Mansa as usual is universally hated

 

[5tephen]

Giving deity a try NHNE fully expecting to lose. Was thinking elepults and thought I was doing well and then I read @Anysense write-up! I'm even further behind in tech having nose dived my economy to get some decent land and cottages going.

Spoiler T83 :

Obviously Genghis could be coming for me but he has closed borders with Mansa so I hope my axeman 1S of Damascus would give me enough warning to whip some spears and axes?
The diplomacy situation is a bit of a pain. If Genghis goes for Mansa who is worst enemy with many people I plan to go for Huayna Capac and buddy up to the Hindu block. If Genghis goes for me, I was thinking of going for Judaism and hoping Mansa and Pacal would help me out...
Probably going aesthetics in the hope someone would like to give me IW, maths or alpha.

 

[Dem Taqat]

Played on monarch, normal speed with huts and events on, and won a domination victory in 1655AD. The best description of my playthrough has to be ‘smooth’; with Creative/Expansive it’s just so easy to setup cities, and everything seemed to just slot into place as I went.

Spoiler :

For the opener I settled in place, and popped mysticism from a nearby hut on the second turn. Super useful for a creative leader. Opening tech was BW and a warrior build, on the grounds that I could chop all the trees to speed expansion. This was exactly what I did, except that with copper in the BFC and both Saladin and Huayna having founded religions in my face it wasn’t an especially peaceful expansion.


With that out of the way, I started blocking off the Jungles to the west using some risky settlers, eventually securing myself the entire area, and crashing my tech in the process. I had IW though, and with all the precious metals at Ankor Thom I could just about stay in the black while I cottaged the hell out of the place. Mansa and Qin converted to Judaism, the rest of the world to Hinduism, and I decided to align with the Hindu block mostly to avoid being targeted by Genghis. They promptly proceeded not to spread their religion to me for the next 2000 years, despite having open borders with all of them for the entire time period.


I crawled my way through Mathematics and Currency, traded around for Monarchy and the missing basics, and spent an age waiting for the Barb city spawned on the westernmost tip of the continent to grow to size 2 so I could capture it. I grabbed Hanging Gardens basically because I could; I had stone and my production city at Cuzco was keeping me comfortably ahead of the curve in military strength. Being fairly unimpressed with the expansion and military of the southern AI nations, I decided I might as well use that sexy Khmer UU (which is cool if not especially good) to snatch a few cities off of them. As I was getting the techs and building up troops, Genghis went to war with Mansa and Qin, so I rolled in on Mansa’s northernmost cities, going as far as Timbuktu and peacing him out with thoughts of moving on to the Mayans. Their military score was abysmal for pretty much the entire game, but as I was moving towards their borders I noticed they were rocking pikes as well as longbows and decided that fight would be far too costly. Instead I moved back to the Malian border and mopped up his remaining cities when the truce was up. With my empire now boasting a full 20 cities I was getting back up to a decent tech rate when I finally converted to Hinduism, and I built the University of Sankore (again, it was cheap) to help that along.


Some furious tech trading and a GS bulb later I was first to Liberalism, and decided to pick up Printing Press on the grounds that Saladin already had nationalism and there were enough cottages being worked that it should give me a decent boost. From here I went through gunpowder, traded up the banking and music trees using education and liberalism, and somehow snagged the GM from economics while stockpiling knights. I’d had cavalry in the back of my mind ever since putting up stables for elephants, and Pacal was still looking awfully juicy with his floodplains and low military score. The other thing I did during this period was spread Hinduism to all my cities, and a good thing I did, since Pacal persuaded every AI in the game to vote in his favour for diplomatic victory. With that crisis narrowly averted I spent a golden age to get rifling and whip out cavalry with vassalage/theocracy, and then it was time to roll.


Pacal bribing in the heathen Qin on the first turn of the war was pretty much the only upset of the game, but I had what was left of my army from the Mali campaigns stationed in the city he chose to target in case of Genghis starting something, so that ‘attack’ was mopped up quite handily. My Ballista Elephants even got to use their special ability; sniping two knights out from under the protection of his grenadiers! Mostly the two of them still had medieval units though, and my Cavalry had a field day with them. Pacal was gone in 6 turns, and a train of horsemen stormed across China with Yasodharapura’s 1st Axemen at the tip of the spear. This survivor of the Inca rush was now a GG rifleman, boasting CR3 and Morale among other promotions. Despite their historically accurate Great Wall, China fell quickly, and Beijing wasn’t even out of rebellion when the curtains finally fell.

DT

 

[Excal]

T173 1130AD

Spoiler :

Pacal DEAD
Mansa next

cant trade anything (except Mansa) WFTYABTA

T184 1240AD

Spoiler :

capped Mansa with 3 border cites remaining
took Banking, Compass

Qin next

T195 1350AD

Spoiler :

Qin DEAD
Genghis plotting

T213 1515AD
Domination

Thanks for the game

Spoiler :

added filler cities
whipped theatres
cranked culture slider

stalked Genghis border with Cuirs/Cavs and he stopped plotting

sooooo many turns of 63.7, 63.8 and finally >64

T201 1410AD
alternative AP cheesy Diplomatic

Spoiler :

while expanding to >64 an AP Diplomatic vote came up
but I originally chose None
so to satisfy my curiosity I replayed to see what would have happened and to my surprise Mansa as alternative resident actually voted for me
but despite 100 years earlier victory this score was marginally lower than the Domination 100 years later

 

[shakabrade]

Deity 25AD - before switch to Bureau and Caste

Spoiler :

I discovered dry rice with the initial scout, and, since there was only one potential food tile if we went on a plains hill (from fog gazing I only saw one grassland) and since we had space for so many cottages if we SiPped, I said, what the heck, I'll skip the plains hill for the first time in a while. Everyone else will go to the plains hill anyway. SiP delayed worker by only 1T (as we had 3 tile in the first ring) but the biggest problem was that worker would need to wait for AH anyway. And I thought that dry and later wet rice, would help with at least one or two whips and would make me work all the cottages considerably faster.
Initial plan was to make 2 workers and chop all the settlers and Axes, as I actually did have an influx of C1 Barbs, the barbs who already smelled blood. The other reason for Axes was that this was Pangaea and I would become a land target of 3-4 AIs in no time. For me, the first rule to winning the game is avoiding losing the game.

Without any early commerce tiles, I knew that expansion would be painful. And it was. I was down to 3gpt for some time. Barely made it to Pottery in time. When I look back, maybe I should have gone to Pottery via Fishing, something I would have certainly done on less crowded map, but I thought, this is Pangaea, it is only important to get somehow to Aesthetics (or Compass or Drama) in okayish time and trade around.

Spoiler :

I barely beat Inca to the Fish spot and comfortably waited to settle the gems. I'd have liked that the AIs were slower to these spots, as I wanted to settle them as late as possible to have some

Spoiler :

Here something unexpected happened. I did expect someone due to inability to be friends with everyone important (religions), but certainly not an AI from the other end of the map.



Fortunately, I was just about to finish the worker, so I 1 pop whipped it and overflowed into a Spear and I also had half built Axe in the capital just in case that something like this happens. Therefore a capital was able to provide 2 defenders in 3 turns as workers were around chopping. Probably the first game where I had more than enough workers. Kudos to being boxed-in and expansive.

So, the Chinese first pillaged my Horses and surrounding tiles, and waited for reinforcements. And when the reinforcements came, they still did not attack. I hate attacks from low unit courage AIs. And then, when I had 10 defenders altogether in the capital and Angkor Thom, the Chinese went on to pillage my capital region. I was sick of waiting him to attack me and I gave him Aesthetics for peace. Damn Chinese cost me research, Great Library and some development of Angkor Thom.

After that I tried to pursue the Music, and:

Spoiler :

Notice the phony war with Mongolia. I decided to "help" Malinese, as they could end up powerful and are important trade partner, while the danger from the Mongolia is very low as Mali is in between us. Although Mongols managed to get a city from Arabs and from Mali. But Keshiks work until LBs come to play and they came to play.

And then we get to the 25AD when we are waiting Philosophy to be researched or traded for GA and civics switch.

Spoiler :

After this switch, I'll get Inca to Friendly as well (Hereditary rule) and will have 3 fantastic trade partners. I liberated one city to Inca and Maya each.
Too bad that we don't have good GPP cities, but some cottages will need to be sacrificed in other cities for some turns. I'll get only 2 GS.From this position, I could prebuild War Elephants and upgrade them to cuirs with GM if I manage to generate it or simply from cottage/trade gold. Basically, it is autopilot from this point on.

 

[shakabrade]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

You are taking totally different approach. Food and specialists to Elepult. Definitely better approach for short term effects. Yeah, the Construction date is not the best, but it is still not bad and also the AIs don't have so much room to expand to and will not be able to whip any defenders once you manage to surprise them. Attacking Inca, Arabia, Mongols seems the easiest route to me. Especially if Inca have the Mids, like in my game and if Saladin does not get Longbows. In any case, I'd attack the AI with fewer cities first because, on your attack date, even the AIs who have stretched thin will have put up good garrisons.

@5tephen

Spoiler :

You are doing exactly what I am doing, even SiPped. It is only the other city locations which are different. I see that I am the only one who wanted to get those horses. I also wanted a monopoly on Gems, you can easily get another happy resources for them as Gems are rare. Sharing the pigs was also on my mind, but those pigs would only enable me to work on the copper and another mine, not many other good tiles to work. I am also doing a lot of neutral resource trades in order to get the diplo bonus sooner and also to call dibs on the resources once I connect something else to make it net positive.

 

[5tephen]

@shakabrade
Thanks for the feedback. That's really useful. I will try again aiming to replicate your approach. I'm on the verge of abandoning my original attempt having been left behind in tech.

Spoiler :

I would have loved to have the horses but I think my tech order was wrong so I didn't see them in time. I went Ag->BW->TW->Pottery before AH and mined the pigs. I chopped really hard but I think I was quite delayed compared to a pasture and I barely used the dry rice farm I got out of it! I suspect if I'd had my worker out with nothing to do yet I'd have mined the grassland hill which with map knowledge would have been great...

 

[shakabrade]

@shakabrade
Thanks for the feedback. That's really useful. I will try again aiming to replicate your approach. I'm on the verge of abandoning my original attempt having been left behind in tech.

Spoiler :

I would have loved to have the horses but I think my tech order was wrong so I didn't see them in time. I went Ag->BW->TW->Pottery before AH and mined the pigs. I chopped really hard but I think I was quite delayed compared to a pasture and I barely used the dry rice farm I got out of it! I suspect if I'd had my worker out with nothing to do yet I'd have mined the grassland hill which with map knowledge would have been great...

Spoiler :

Oh, so, you did not have AH for some time. Mining the pigs is totally ok move if you have other decent food. But dry rice does not count for that, IMO. If you want to mine heavily early, you still need some good food to grow to to work the tiles in reasonable time and support them. That is why I opted to delay Agriculture, even though it discounts AH. Needed more food and AH reveals Horses while Agri does not. Now that I think about stuff, I never considered going to Writing before Pottery. Could have had much better research early on, but maybe not enough commerce to support expansion. Or maybe I'd have all techs at almost the same time, but much better GPP. Definitely, I feel that I haven't played this too well, try to find your own way if you replay. And you are still in ok position in your game. That is totally winnable if no one DOWs you.

 

[soundjata]

@shakabrade I noticed the number of farms in your last screenshot

 

[5tephen]

@shakabrade
Thanks for the encouragement; I was a bit disheartened as deity seems so difficult and it has really helped to hear that my position isn't unsalvageable. I'll play on a bit